


Unlucky

by amberbee112



Category: A Series of Unfortunate Events - Lemony Snicket, The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Dialogue-Only, Klaus is like 17 and is also jewish which is mentioned once, Season/Series 03, Statement Fic, i have a bad memory dont at me, ish, you ever think about how unlucky the baudelaires are. theyre just supernaturally unlucky.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-23
Updated: 2019-04-23
Packaged: 2020-01-24 09:27:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18568585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amberbee112/pseuds/amberbee112
Summary: Statement of Klaus Baudelaire, regarding a series of unfortunate events that plagued him and his sisters. Statement recorded direct from subject.





	Unlucky

[Click]

“Hey—hey kid, you don’t have the authority to be down here.”

“Huh? Oh, sorry. I got sent down here to give a statement and got a little distracted.” A chuckle. “I haven’t really studied the paranormal much. Are you the archivist?”

“Er, yes. The Archivist. That’s me, Jonathan Simms.”

“Klaus Baudelaire. Nice to meet you.”

“You said something about giving a statement?”

[Click]

“...Hm.”

“What is it?”

“The tape recorder turned itself on _after_ you set it down on the table.”

“Ah, They’re... finicky, you know?”

“Strange, it would’ve made more sense for the impact of it hitting the table trigger whatever part of the power switch is broken. My sister could probably fix it for you.”

“Your sister works with tapes?”

“No, she has a knack for any kind of machine.”

“Well, I don’t think her expertise could help us in this case.” He cleared his throat.

“What do you mean?”

“Erm—paranormal things. Poltergeists, ah, things like that.”

“I see! I’ve been meaning to do some research into the supernatural for some time, meant to do it before coming here to see if what i experienced was an actual paranormal event or just bad luck.”

“Researching these sort of things can be...hit or miss, depending on what kind of books you get. Shall we get to the statement.”

“Oh yes, sorry.

“Statement of Klaus Baudelaire, regarding….”

“A series of unfortunate events.”

“Recorded direct from subject. Statement begins.”

“It really started with my parent’s death, about five years ago now. It was a house fire. Arson. It was the first unfortunate event, the event that set the ball rolling. The fire left myself, my elder sister Violet, and then-infant sister Sunny, orphans. Violet was to inherit our parents fortune when she came of age, or really whichever one of us didn’t die first. That was the problem.

“Somehow Count Olaf—I believe he was a distant uncle, but I never properly learned our relation and now I don’t care to figure it out—he became our legal guardian, and attempted to marry Violet to get her fortune. We were removed from his care and placed in the care of Montgomery Montgomery, apparently another family member. Count Olaf, disguised as Monty’s assistant, crept his way into our lives and when we tried to tell someone, Monty would smile and nod, say he would keep a close eye on him, but in the end it didn’t help. It didn’t prevent his murder.

“And then the pattern would start again. We’d be moved, Count Olaf would show up, we’d warn whatever authority figures present, only to be met pacifying responses. Something terrible would happen to us, or our guardian, or both, and whatever plan Count Olaf had would fail Rinse and repeat. That pattern repeated _seven times_ with very little variation. No one is that unlucky. No one can be ignorant of a pattern like that willingly.

“Oh, Mr. Poe. Mr. Poe was arguably a smart man. It was his responsibility to advise our parents in financial matters while they were alive, and I distinctly remember him telling us about a promotion he got once—Head of Orphan Affairs or something like that. If you ignored his blindness to our entire situation, he was a competent man! But somehow as soon as Count Olaf was involved whatever sense Mr. Poe might have had left him. We were always _paranoid_ , but we were also always _right_ , and after a while wouldn’t he notice? Even if we were only children, wouldn’t he pick up on the pattern? It was his job to keep us safe but we got caught up in a schism of a secret organization. I was _a child._ I shouldn’t have had to read law books and steal hospital records to stay safe. _Something_ had to prevent him from doing his job.

“Or maybe that’s just a comforting thought. That he could have done a better job if not for whatever paranormal being that prevented him from being competent.

“That pattern only broke when some grown adults accused us of murder. No real evidence, of course, but I doubt that town ever had a police force functioning enough to find a lost cat. Which lead to me spending my thirteenth birthday in jail. That’s when it really all hit me. The feeling as though my suffering was just an amusement for someone, somewhere.That every terrible event ranging from my parents death to not getting a bar mitzvah, which i still resent a bit, was just entertainment. It’s a terrible feeling. Makes you sad and angry and scared, those simple building block emotions.

“I wish I could say the charge was dismissed and my siblings and i went on to live a pleasant life, but as far as I know there’s still a warrant out for my arrest. We fled town, ended up at the scenes of several more arsons and ended up deeply entrenched in the activities of a now disbanded secret organization called V.F.D. And even then the ‘volunteers’ treated us like adults that could help _them_ , not the traumatized children that needed help from any functioning adult. We wanted to be safe, not fighting over whatever was in the damn sugar bowl.

“We got it, eventually. Count Olaf died of medusiod mycelium poisoning on a deserted island. Complicated story. We adopted a woman named Kit Snicket’s baby, though she died too. We had a peaceful year on that island then returned to the main continent. But we went through too much to get it, no one’s naturally naturally so unlucky they have thirteen atrocities—more or less, not counting each individual death—happen to them in a year.

“Is that enough?”

“I believe so. And Klaus?”

“Yes?”

“Do not research the paranormal. I do not want any more unfortunate events befalling your family. Do not come back to the Institute either.”

“...Okay.”

“Statement ends.”

[Click]

“Research on the plight of the Baudelaires proved more difficult than expected. Melanie found some clippings from the Daily Punctillio on their parents death, as well as reports of “Veronica, Klyde, and Susie Baudelaire” as suspects in the murder of “Count Omar.” I really don’t know what to make of that, or if its even trustworthy considering the paper it was published in.

"Count Olaf does not seem to be his legal name, but there are several advertisments for plays featuring an actor named Count Olaf, including one for _The Marvellous Marriage_ , which also features one Violet Baudelaire. This could have been part of the scheme to marry her that Klaus mentioned.

“Martin briefly spoke with Mr. Arthur Poe, who confirmed he handled the finances of the Baudelaires before their ‘death’, though it wasn’t clear if he believed the children dead or was referring to their parents. He firmly refused to speak more on the subject. Martin apparently tried to take a page out of Tim’s book and flirt with Mr. Poe’s secretary, but failed spectacularly.”

“I hope Klaus doesn’t get his hands on a Leitner. Kid doesn’t need something else messing up his life.”

**Author's Note:**

> im just gonna ramble real quick.  
> The entity thats causing the exceptional misfortune of the baudelaires is the Eye, which is stated to be the fear that you are suffering for the sake of something watching, which gets real meta in a way i didnt expect when i first started writing this!  
> The idea for this bounced around in my head for a while while listening to season 3, but i wanted to wait till i was caught up to actually write this. I feel like violet would be a bit too practical minded and sunny a bit too baby to give the statement, while i think klaus has the right amount of curiousity, openmindedness and probably believes in aliens because humans cant just be alone in the universe. He'd also fall right into being an avatar of the mind, or fall prey to a leitner. Theres probably a fic ill maybe write some day where he joins the institute.  
> When I thought of this i thought the lonely might be a good fit for the controlling entity, since being forced from place to place is inherantly isolating, and the feeling of not being listened to is also isolating but it just didnt fit w/ what we know about the lonely.  
> I wrote this with the eye just deciding to be an asshole to these children in particular. However, Count Olaf probably accidentally became an avatar of the stranger or the spiral and never realized.  
> I tried to keep this statement more about Klaus' feelings and his perspective than a plot summary of the asoue books, which wouldve been boring. hope i succeeded.


End file.
